As the performance of general-purpose information processing apparatuses such as a personal computer improves, texts, tables, images, and the like can be easily edited/created by various application programs.
In general, texts, simple tables, and the like are created by a document editing application program, images are created by an image editing application program, and tables with relatively complicated operation are created by a spreadsheet application program. In this manner, the user selectively uses an application in accordance with the purpose.
A document for one purpose is formed from only one type of data such as only a text, only a table with numerical operation, or only an image, but a situation in which a document containing different types of data is created is increasing.
To prepare a document formed from a plurality of types of data, each part of the document is created, edited, and printed by a corresponding application. Then, respective parts are rearranged in order and combined.
However, to assign page numbers to pages when the user creates one target document by combining printed materials generated by various applications, the user must print out all necessary data, combine them into a paper document as a printed result, and then determine page numbers to be assigned. Each application writes determined page numbers on respective pages (to be referred to as logical pages or document pages) of a document created by the application. Even if the application program has a function of assigning page numbers, the page numbers of discontinuous pages must be designated by the user. If the pages of the target document are rearranged, page numbers must be reassigned in accordance with the rearrangement. These pages must also be edited and printed again by a corresponding application when not data contents but merely the format is changed so that a plurality of document pages are combined into one page (to be referred to as a physical page or print page) as a print material, or single-sided printing is changed to double-sided printing.
Since an application which manages data changes depending on the type of data, the user must manually provide an interface between applications. This means that much labor is demanded of the user, decreasing the productivity. Especially creation of a document for one purpose by sharing respective parts between a plurality of users by using application programs on the PCs of the users is confusing, and readily causes errors owing to operations by many users.
In this technical background, the assignee of the present applicant has proposed a mechanism of combining documents created by various applications into one electronic document, managing the electronic document by a hierarchical structure formed from a book, chapter, and page, and performing print settings for each layer (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-162407).
The assignee of the present applicant examines a mechanism for a printing system disclosed in this reference. According to this mechanism, not only documents created by various applications but also paper documents are scanned by a multifunction apparatus, scanner, or the like, and image data of scanned pages are imported into a bookbinding application to form one document file. Further, this mechanism allows properly changing the layout and arrangement position, and stores and manages the file as bookbinding data. As a result, the type and manufacturer of an application for creating and editing pages of a document do not matter, and the user can directly uses an accustomed application. Since each page of a scanned document is optically scanned, unlike an application data file created by an application, the resultant data is likely to be noisy owing to skew scanning of a document or attachment of dust. By executing an image correction process such as skew correction or dust removal, a scanned document image can be stored and managed as a page of bookbinding data at almost the same quality as that of a result printed from a data file created by a general application program.
However, when a character contained in a scanned document is small, the sonant symbol of the character or the like may be determined as noise and removed. Also, a document may be intentionally skewed and scanned, and an image correction process may be performed against the user's will. In this case, a page having undergone image correction must be removed, a document must be scanned again without any image correction process, and the scanned image data must be imported into the system without any image correction.